Ask at any feeding spot what the ginger one is called, and the answer is usually a boy’s name. That’s not a coincidence. About 80% of ginger cats are male, according to the UK vet charity PDSA.
The reason is the same one that makes male calicos so rare, seen from the other side.
In short
| How many are male? | About 80%. |
|---|---|
| Why? | The orange gene is on the X chromosome. Boys need one copy, girls two. |
| When was it found? | 2025, by teams in Japan and the US. |
| Are all gingers tabbies? | Yes. Look closely and every one has stripes. |
One copy or two
Whether a cat’s fur grows orange or black is decided on the X chromosome. In 2025, two teams, at Kyushu University in Japan and Stanford in the US, finally found the change that makes it orange: a small piece of DNA missing near a gene called ARHGAP36. NPR called it the end of a decades-long mystery.
A male cat has one X and one Y. If his single X carries the orange version, that’s it: he’s ginger.
A female has two X chromosomes. She’s only fully ginger if both carry the orange version. If just one does, she comes out a patchwork of orange and black: a tortoiseshell, or a calico if she has white too. That’s why the ginger boys are so common, and why the torties are nearly all girls.
So when is a ginger girl born?
She needs an orange X from each parent. Her father has only one X to give, so he must be ginger himself. Her mother must carry orange too, so she’s either ginger or a tortie.
Boys are simpler. A male gets his only X from his mother, so his father’s colour doesn’t matter at all. A ginger mother has only ginger sons. A tortie mother’s sons are about half ginger, half black.
Put that together on a street full of mixed cats, and you get around four ginger boys for every ginger girl.
Every ginger cat is a tabby
Look closely at a ginger cat and you’ll always find stripes, swirls or spots, and the M on the forehead. PDSA puts it simply: all orange cats are tabbies. In black cats, a separate gene can hide the tabby pattern and make the coat look plain. Orange fur doesn’t respond to it, so the pattern always shows through, if sometimes faintly.
The friendly ginger
Ginger cats have a reputation: friendly, greedy, a bit daft. People do believe it. In a 2012 survey, people rated orange cats as the friendliest of five colours. But the survey asked what people thought, not how the cats behaved. Since most gingers are boys, some of the reputation may just be tomcat behaviour.
There’s more on ginger fame, from film stars to the cat who saved a busker, in our page for Ginger Cat Appreciation Day.
Snap the gingers on your street. One in five is a girl. See if you can find her.
